A candle's light
by Milana8
Summary: "The nightmare again?" A gust of wind blows one of the candles, she shivers. She can't talk yet so she just nods and buries her nose in Lexa's shoulder. The winds blow stronger outside, and the flame of the candle next to the unlit one flickers. Clarke feels her girlfriend stiffen, but the light remains and Lexa clears her throat. "Did I ever tell you why I keep all those candles?"


_Her finger is shaking on the trigger, and she looks one last time at the people quietly eating in the living room. Men and women laughing together, laughing with their mouths wide open, and she can feel their joy even in the strong silence surrounding her. She cannot hear anything._

 _She cannot hear anything, and yet, the atmosphere changes. Her hand hasn_ _'_ _t moved, but the trigger is no longer in it. The scene darkens, and everyone collapses to the floor in this unreal silence. The midnight moonlight lightens the corpses as they start burning from inside out- and she stands still, frozen. She wants to scream, but she can't. She can_ _'_ _t and she watches them burn from inside, frozen in horror, frozen in front of that damn screen. She watches them burn again and again, when suddenly a face shows up on the screen, and for a stupid second she hopes someone survived- someone survived her. But the little boy facing her is anything but alive, and his- its- deformed mouth opens, slowly, so slowly. And in the silence, he screams. "You killed us!"_

"Clarke, honey. It's okay, you're okay, you're safe, shhhh."

Clarke startles and sits in the bed, eyes wide open. The thunder is growling outside and lightening ignites the room. She's in Lexa's bedroom -their bedroom- still enlightened by the soft shivering light from Lexa's candles. Her lover is right by her side; wearing a concerned look on her face.

"The nightmare again?"

A gust of wind blows out one of the candles, and she shivers. She cannot talk yet, so she just nods and buries her face into Lexa's shoulder- shivering from both guilt and fear.

She can feel the soft touch of the commander's hair on her naked shoulder, her fingers embracing hers in an attempt to comfort her sorrows. Behind her closed eyes, she can almost see the concern in the green eyes, the sly smile saying, "it's all right". It's better than any words, and Clarke wonders why, how can she be so lucky to have found someone- the girl her heart had been waiting for, when so many suffered because of her. When so many people have _died_ because of her. Sometimes she hates herself so much. Sometimes she just can't stand the love in Lexa's embrace because it's too painful to feel what so many people will never be able to experience again. Yet, she can't let her go either, because she feels so week, so small without her by her side. So she just closes her eyes and holds Lexa tighter.

For a few interminable minutes, they remain like this: hugging in silence, Lexa gently caressing her blonde lover's back. The winds blow stronger outside, and the flame of the candle next to the unlit one continues to flicker. Clarke feels her girlfriend stiffen, but the light remains, and Lexa clears her throat.  
"Did I ever tell you why I keep all those candles?"

Surprised blue eyes emerge from the messy blond hair laying on her shoulder, and Clarke shakes her head. Her voice hoarse from the screams she couldn't hear in her own dream, doesn't let anything out but a mutter when she tries to speak.

"Why would you… Tell me about that?"  
Lexa smiles gently, her hands still slowly rubbing the girl's back.

"Actually, I don't speak much about it, but… Those candles... They mean much more than they seem."

Clarke straightens to rest her back on the headboard, and rests her head on Lexa's shoulder. The brunette can't help but smirk at the blonde's shy pout, as she looks exactly like a little girl waiting for her bedtime story.

She takes a deep breath.

"You see, I don't remember much from my mother. She left me in Polis at four, just like every nightblood parent have to. Yet, I still remember a little bit. Especially one night. Our last one."

Lexa's voice gets softer, and Clarke feels like she is far away from their bedroom right now. Probably in that little room she used to have before the Commander's guard ripped her away from her home. Despite all her actual sorrow, despite everything that could happen, Clarke craves for knowing what's hiding beneath her beautiful lover's strange habit. She leans closer, and closes her eyes, trying to picture little Lexa at four, talking to her mother for the last time.

"I started training at two, and the night before she left, it was already pretty clear Luna or I would be the next commander. That night, she was supposed to leave me forever, and I cried when she started to go. So she turned back and she said I was right- she had forgotten something. She wanted to give me something. I didn't listen, I didn't care about what she could give me. I just wanted her back then. But she put that candle in my hands."

The brunette points to a very old and used candle, one Clarke had always wondered why she was still keeping. Now she knows… Lexa breaths heavily. Her body is by Clarke's side, but her mind is elsewhere. She's in this room, with her mother again, and Clarke can feel it hurts.

"She told me…"

Lexa's voice breaks, she takes a breath and tries again.

"She told me I shouldn't be afraid. Because I was born for this, because I was chosen. And I asked her, what if I make mistakes? What if people die because of me?"

Clarke's gaze softens again, her thoughts far far away from Mount Weather. She reaches up wiping a tear from Lexa's cheek with a caress of her hand. The brunette seems to comes back to reality and with her eyes on Clarke's that she continues.

"She told me I would make mistakes, and she would not be around to fix them. She told me I would be alone and guilty. She told me I'd be hated for what I'd do, that some people would want me dead, and I was four, it scared me to hell! But then… Then she pointed to that candle in my hand. She told me I would light it when I would feel the need to- when I would feel I had made my first real leader's mistake. Light a candle, for each life I fail to protect, for each mistake I make, because mistakes are the way we grow. Because we can learn from them, and draw a lighter path from it. To protect the lives that are under our guard. Because we own those mistakes, because we're humans- and sometimes we fail. Sometimes it feels like its not okay, but it is, because that's the way it was and we can't do anything to change it. So that's what I did. I light a candle for every person I hurt, every time I feel like I did something I should feel ashamed for, and I know I have to go on. You see that one?"

She points to a green candle in the back of the room. Clarke nods.

"It's Costia's. And this one the wind blew? It's for my Conclave's day." Silence, and she points to a few candles next to the bed. "This one's for Mount Weather. And this one for TonDc."

Silence fell back into the room, and Clarke stares at the thousands of candles lighting the room.

"How could you… How could your mother leave you like this? Saying stuff like this to a four year-old?"

A sly smile lightens Lexa's face.  
"As I said, she wasn't the most maternal one. But still, that's not what I meant there. Do you see all those candles?"

Clarke frowns.

"Do you want me to feel better because you made a lot of mistakes?"

Lexa's smile widens a tiny bit, because Clarke's so cute with that questioning pout when she doesn't understand what she means.

"No, you silly. Look around you. Before I tell you that, what did you see in here?"  
Clarkes frowns again to focus better.

"I saw… Light. Beautiful lights, all other the room. Almost as beautiful as you. A place almost magical, where we'd be safe, protected against anything."

Lexa smile widens.

" Here we go. It's lighting the room so we can see where we're going. It's protecting us from the dark- shades us from future mistakes. So you can sleep Clarke. Our mistakes won't hurt us here. They're protecting us."

Clarke leans in deeper. Her head become heavier on Lexa's shoulder.

"You'll be alright, Clarke. You just need time, not to forgive but to live with it. And, in the meantime and after, you'll be safe, I won't let anything hurt you."

She turns to face the blonde, but the vibrant blue eyes are celled shut, her body gently resting over hers. The brunette can't help but caress the red cheek and the blonde hair, and smiles, moved once again by the softness in Clarke's facial features when she's asleep.

"I'll never let anything, anything ever hurt you, I promise. I love you, Clarke kom Skaïkru," she murmurs.

A lazy smile floats on the blonde's sleepy face as she holds her brunette lover tighter.  
"I'm not sleeping," she whispers. "And I love you too, Lexa."

* * *

 **AN:** **I hope you liked it ^^! I love the Clexa ship, and seeing as Lexa's not supposed to come back for season four (bouhhhh...) fanfictions are the only way to keep her alive... So I will most likely make some more! A huge thanks to Frozen Blues for beta-reading me, also :)**  
 **Hope to see you around soon!**


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